The present invention relates generally to electronic media communications, and, more particularly, to the creation and distribution of targeted electronic media communications.
Modern business management calls for effective communications between management and employees. Among various other techniques for communicating with employees, conventional employee communication programs have typically included providing a bulletin board upon which printed material, such as for example, posters including photographs, artwork, designs and/or slogans, and messages are displayed. Topics that may be the subject of employee communications are diverse and may involve safety, work quality, teamwork, morale and self-motivation. For example, since safety is an important consideration in most working environments, a poster with a slogan relating to the exercise of caution in potentially dangerous situations may be displayed for impressing upon employees an employer's requirement for observing on-the-job safety. Other examples of representative employee communications include news releases about the company, messages for boosting employee morale and/or messages relating to employee activities.
In conventional systems, graphic designers may develop posters and other employee communications by hand or on a computer aided design system. Typically, they are printed as a large employee communication for display and then sent to a client for mounting to a bulletin board. The bulletin board may be relatively sophisticated and creatively organized for efficiency and visual attention, such as a three-panel bulletin board on the order of 26 inches (66 centimeters) by 63 inches (160 centimeters). The posters are typically manually replaced to communicate corporate goals, news of interest and employee activities to employees.
At regular time intervals, such as once a month or once a week, clients may select new posters and messages and/or the new posters and messages are automatically selected, printed and shipped periodically to each client. Because of the large number and variety of clients and the specific requirements for certain users, there are significant inefficiencies associated with selecting, printing and shipping the employee communications. This is especially so where various bulletin boards located throughout a company's various facilities require different material to be posted on differing bulletin boards.
In addition, achieving a relatively high degree of customization and selectivity with traditional manual bulletin board systems is economically problematic.